


ashen faces in cold breeze (all the stories you will leave)

by marauderas



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, angst and prophecies and pining and feels, hook is there (although barely so) because canon hates me but i'm deviating so w/e, i assume fake!robin was as well but now he simply... isn't, it all started with that one scene from lovesick and now here we are ten months later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-01-15 10:23:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12319131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauderas/pseuds/marauderas
Summary: She examines the paths they’ve chosen; thinks of warm meals and clearer skies, of Henry’s smiles and an easiness laced into their dynamics that they all have fought so hard to preserve.Fought with sharpened, sinking teeth. With wrath and darkness puncturing their lungs.Spilled blood trailing down bare arms.or, another take at season 6B





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> many, many months ago i watched a scene from 'lovesick' that fucked me up real good. you know what else fucks me up real good although i haven't properly watched since s4 perhaps? swan queen.
> 
> this is canon compliant until somewhere during season 6B: split queen happened, the wish realm happened, the proposal happened, and the black fairy is taunting them all one way or another.
> 
> the biggest shout out in the whole wide world to ambre, august and steph for enduring my endless back and forth re: this fic, and to evie for agreeing to read this chapter beforehand--you're all angels.
> 
> first time writing for these crazy kids so kinda anxious but here we go.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s done before she even gets a chance to stop it— 

done for her, instead of her, _in front_ of her.

Of her, and Emma.

God, Emma.

Zelena storms off right away, not in a cloud of green smoke but followed by a snap of her black coat, the statement all more strong with the click of her heels fading away, effectively punctuating the words she just uttered, left to hover and sink and wreak havoc.

And they’re left alone.

Silence stretches out between them— _ticking_ , threatening to rupture.

Slowly, Regina lifts her gaze, forces herself to look at Emma, lips parting in something, anything, but—

”Are you?” Emma asks, and her voice is small and breaking in all the places Regina assumes her own would if she could will herself to speak at the moment.

So she clears her throat, straightens up in the seat, plasters on the ghost of a smile.

Tries to ignore the tears trailing down Emma’s cheeks, as well as the ones welling in her own eyes.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, she had decided to never put her feelings above Emma’s wellbeing, above her _happiness_ , and the reminder of said decision rings louder than ever in her throbbing ears.

”Emma…” she starts, she _tries_ , but there’s the shrill, sudden screeching of a wooden chair against the floor and then Emma is on her feet and wiping off the tears with the back of her hand, a hoarse, ” _No_ ,” clawing up her throat before she heads for the door.

She’s gone before Regina can regain control of the situation, if she ever had any to begin with.

 

 

 

 

 

And although it’s a series of awfully unfortunate events, the ones that lead to her sitting alone in a secluded booth of an otherwise crowded Rabbit Hole on a chilly Tuesday evening, there’s an exquisiteness to its domino effect that is hard to argue with even as everything unfolds catastrophically.

She doesn’t vanish from the bar in a sudden cloud of smoke either but walks home despite the cold, _because_ of the cold, a fool’s voice in her head—her own, perhaps—arguing that fresh, biting air will provide with some sense of serenity, no matter how small. It doesn’t, and she ends up by her front door with said series of events carefully revised and sorted through as she fishes for the key chain in her coat pocket, fingers trembling and numb even beneath the protection of black leather gloves.  

And if Emma’s absence at the porch comes with the heart-wrenching certainty that something subjacent has shifted between them, Regina doesn’t let on.

She won’t. 

She can’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Said series of events, as she sorts through them, go more or less like this—)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i.

Hook proposes, then disappears amidst the discovery of one of his past crimes, then comes back. And it’s fine, it _is_ , because Regina had been seething silently since the moment she’d found out, carefully constructing façades that told a different tale from what she later understood had had her aching underneath it all—

a glimmer of hope, selfish and untainted and oh, so terribly wrong.

But Hook does comes back, which is _fine_ because Emma loves him, and although his heart doesn’t measure up to hers—never could begin to _aspire_ to measure up, quite frankly—at least he ultimately runs back to her instead of away.

At least he won’t be making the list of people who’ve abandoned her, who’ve fueled her deepest fears and left her to pick up the pieces of her battered, broken heart.

(At least he isn’t the very main cause for her abandonment to begin with, Regina ponders awash with bitterness.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ii.

Belle vanishes right in front of their eyes, turns into thin air after the mere, trivial snap of two fingers, and she doesn’t come back, _can’t_ be brought back if the Black Fairy is to be trusted—which she isn’t, not really, but she’s spouting out words about collateral damage and leverage, and Regina’s heart breaks for the girl getting caught in the crossfire and being used as a pawn in someone else’s game.

And it’s unspoken between them—between the _heroes_ of the story—right then and there as they stand in the middle of the dark main street, that a plan will be threaded together, a plan to bring back Belle sound and safe—

but then Zelena is raging against the night, raging against Gold and against them all, something ancient screaming within her as she blasts out spell after spell after spell, green and black explosions darting in every possible direction and causing everything around them to crumble to the ground.

Emma’s hand slips into Regina’s while they run, yanking her around a building where they find momentarily shelter, and, ”You okay?” Emma asks breathlessly, then, ”What the _hell_ is going on?” right before they’re forced to dash back towards the main street when the corner of the building shielding them collapses due to one of the green blasts.

And Regina doesn’t understand, can’t quite put together the pieces of the puzzle that is her sister’s behavior, not until the Black Fairy’s next move almost takes Emma’s life, _again_ , and a scream rips out of Regina as she rages against the night herself.

The battle comes to a halt with Emma folding in half and dropping to her knees in the middle of the street, the fabric of her jeans skinning and Regina’s name catching at the back of her throat. They hear maniac, thundering laughter fading away, echoing loudly in the now still night and wrapped in the thick layers of black smoke slowly thinning out.

Across from them, Zelena doesn’t linger for a moment longer than necessary either, gone in the same manner as the Black Fairy in a matter of seconds. Without a warning or a second thought, Regina slips an arm behind Emma and around her torso, propping her up as she leads the way to the curb.

Emma winces, legs unstable even with Regina’s aid. ”Wait—” she breathes, eyes landing on the red scratches across Regina’s cheek. She reaches up with her free hand, gentle fingers brushing off dark strands of hair. ”Are you okay? Did she get to you, too?”

Skin burning beneath the touch, Regina turns away with a huff, and, ”In spite of what your foolish instincts might urge you to do,” she mutters as they resume their unsteady walk, ”when I tell you to stay put I actually mean _stay put_.”

Emma smiles weakly. ”I’m okay. Promise.”

”For _now_.”

”I’ll take what I can get. _Ow_ —hey! Set me down gently.”

Regina glares at her, eases Emma down the brick wall then helps her sit up against it, and Emma laughs at her own joke, says, ”Remember?” like she wasn’t wringing in pain less than five minutes ago. 

(Like her knees didn’t just hit the asphalt with a sense of fatality that made Regina’s blood freeze and knocked all air out of her lungs.)

Hurried footsteps come to a halt next to them, all three newcomers—Snow, David, Hook—wearing expressions of equal concern as they hang back while Regina, sleeves rolled up and brow creasing, lets her hands hover over Emma’s wounded chest. At once, magic begins dripping from her fingertips, healing and mitigating and supplying them with at least a shred of short-lived easiness.

”Thanks,” Emma chuckles from the ground. ”Close one, huh?”

She makes a futile attempt at pushing onto her feet before David rushes to her aid, and, ”Easy there, Em,” he whispers, lips curling into a smile that doesn’t quite reach anywhere else.

Ever the meddling mother, Snow insists Emma stays at theirs, and Emma, although reluctant at first, caves with a sigh. On his end, David, eyes somber and pleading and barely displaying their usual spark, makes a point to exchange a look with Regina, and Regina nods quietly, waves a complying hand that cuts through the air. A moment later, she’s landing softly on the loft’s hardwood floor with Emma—and only Emma—by her side. 

Yet the purple haze has barely begun to dilute around them before Regina is aiming for the door, footsteps quick and determined despite Emma’s insistence that they take a moment to rethink strategy.

”Zelena just opened fire against us all, _including you_."

She’s on her feet but barely so, a twinge of pain flashing across concerned features when she staggers forward. Regina pretends not to notice, partly because it’s easier that way—it tugs at her heartstrings with lesser force—and partly because Emma is far too stubborn to admit she’s hurting anyway.

Regina counters, ”It’s not about us,” because somewhere deep down, she knows.

She knows all too well.

”But—”

”Get some rest,” Regina insists, something between an order and a plea. ”There’s plenty of time for scheming tomorrow.”

Emma, so much like her parents sometimes, has another protest ready against her lips, but relinquishes at Regina’s mention of Henry and her needing to pick him up from a still spell-protected Granny’s. Looking fairly unconvinced still, she asks of Regina to send a text as soon as they get home, and Regina nods once more, leaves without another word.

And it isn’t until she’s home, until she’s back at the mansion and Henry’s kissed her goodnight and gone to bed that something else rips out of her: this time in form of a ragged sob, her carefully assembled façade finally shattering in the middle of her dimly-lit bedroom.

Only then and there she allows herself to unravel, one trembling hand muffling her sobs as she stumbles back against the wall—

lets herself mourn, yes, but not over lost possibilities or even the cruel twists of fate that have resulted in her aching for something she can never have, _again_ , but rather over the crushing horror, the much tangible and fully plausible scenario where Emma herself could have ceased to breathe and exist right in front of them, over the fact that there’s nothing she could have done to prevent it, nothing at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which is why the morning after finds her knocking on Zelena’s door with the outline of a plan up her sleeve, a plan to bring back Belle sound and safe according to what they’d all silently agreed on, she explains, and Zelena scoffs like it doesn’t concern her, yet still waves an impatient hand at Regina, prompts her to sit down and elaborate.

And Regina does.

She swallows her annoyance and pride and primal urge to call out her sister, if only to atone for how she herself once schemed plans that involved putting Belle in the crossfire, however long ago that might have been.

Still, Zelena isn’t exactly _easy_ , so by the third time she makes a snide comment about how she can’t begin to comprehend why she’s supposed to care about this rescue mission, Regina bristles—

”You know what,” she bites, slamming shut the spell book in front of her, ”I’m done. Let her rot in whatever realm she’s ended up in for all I care.”

She makes a move to leave, stands up under Zelena’s scalding gaze, then, softer, _quieter_ , and meeting Zelena’s eyes, ”You are free to pretend all you want, but I saw you last night. You care about her.”

As expected, Zelena scoffs in response, averts her eyes to the window. ”Care for the _book worm_? Please.”

”Zelena—”

”I’d certainly _hope_ for my judgment to be wiser than to let me… let me… Rumpelstiltskin’s _wife_.” She spits out the word like it’s poison, like that’s the part that wounds her the most. Regina says nothing, doesn’t acknowledge the sudden cracks in Zelena’s voice, nor the way her defiant green eyes look even greener with fresh tears in them as she turns back to face Regina. ”She’s _entitled_ and _opinionated_ , and _awfully_ vanilla. Nothing more than a damsel in distress, constantly putting herself in–in harm’s ways.” She brushes a quick finger under her eyes, forces out a dry laugh. ”And for _what_?”

Suddenly at a loss of words, Regina settles for silence. For a long moment, all they hear is Robyn tossing and turning in the other room, and Regina, embracing the assumption that their conversation has reached a conclusion (albeit not a fruitful one), turns around and towards the door, but—

”Do you really have a plan?” Zelena asks, voice slightly firmer on the surface.

Regina nods, steps back onto her previous position. ”I think I do.”

And she thinks that might be the end of it, the end of them being on opposite sides of this for now, but then Zelena is pushing off her seat to tower over Regina with newfound driving force, and, ”That was certainly rich of you,” she sneers.

Genuine confusion crosses Regina’s face. ”Excuse me?”

Zelena scoffs, lips curling into a grin that suggests far too much.

(Which, taking into account who the person wearing that grin is, can’t possibly bode well.)

”To pretend as though you have the moral high ground when you so obviously harbor feelings for the _Savior_.” Zelena breezes past her, aiming for the spell book on the table, and Regina stands still, stunned, _speechless_ , even as Zelena flips through the pages of the book with infuriating nonchalance. ”Of course, I’ve had my suspicions for a while, but that day after seeing the ring? And that miserable hug?” She huffs. ”Your acting skills leave quite the room for improvement, sis.”

At last, Regina finds her voice. ”My acting skills are just _fine_. And whatever delusion you’ve landed on regarding my relationship with Emma—”

Zelena bursts into exasperating laughter. ” _Delusion_? Good god, Regina, have some self-respect.” She shuts the book with a flourish, eyes lighting up with malice as she turns to her sister. ”Do you have a plan for that, too? _Ooh_ , are you interrupting the wedding? Isn’t that kind of your thing?”

” _Certainly_ not.”

Eyebrow arching skeptically, Zelena pushes, ”What _are_ you doing, then?”

”I’m not doing _anything_ because there is _nothing_ to be done,” Regina counters, and even if the wording could be interpreted as a confirmation to Zelena’s assumptions, she certainly hopes that the clear steel quality to her tone will be enough to put an end to this particular conversation.

It doesn’t, of course.

”Nothing to be done?” Zelena echoes, just a little too loudly. ”You’re actually going to let her marry that unworthy pirate?” Then, a second later and just as it dawns on her: ”Have you lost your _mind_? Isn’t it enough that you’ve fallen head-over-heels for the bloody Savior, are you also telling me that you can’t see— _won’t_ see that she’s clearly, pathetically in lov—”

” _Enough_!” Regina thunders.

And it’s a colossal statement to her ire when Zelena actually remains silent long enough for Regina to gather and word the thoughts she’s had yet to voice out loud.

”What I feel doesn’t matter,” she says with caution. ”Whatever my feelings might be, Emma is in love with the pirate—so much that she’s marrying him, in fact, as you’re well aware of. As for me—I’m done getting in the way of people’s happy endings.” A beat, then, as she smoothens down her dress with aggregated focus, ”Now, are you finished with the needless accusations or do you wish to enroll someone else’s help on this specific matter? Because as far as _I_ can recall, you’re not on very good terms with the rest of this town, are you?”

Zelena opens her mouth to object, then decides against it, fearing that her next words could actually end up costing Belle her best chance at being found in the near future.

”That’s what I thought,” Regina concludes. She holds onto the reclaimed ounce of control with a steel grip. ”And since time’s a luxury we can’t afford at the moment, let’s see if we’re strong enough to conjure a location spell that transcends several realms at once.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iii.

Emma, because it all circles back to her, goes back in ways Regina wouldn't— _couldn’t_ —have predicted thirty-two years ago, four years ago, one year ago.

Emma, who had rolled into town in that yellow bug of hers, oblivious and dangerous and the very embodiment of both a beginning and an ending—the beginning of Regina’s much dreaded downfall, a prophecy waiting to strike down, and the very ending of life as she’d known it for the past twenty-eight years. In the span of a few weeks only, Emma had become the personification of Regina’s deepest fears, had shaken awake parts of her that had been dormant for so long, had met Regina’s stubborn defiance with an equal share of her own.

And god, Regina had _known_ —

it had dawned on her sooner than she’d cared to admit that they weren’t supposed to exist at the same time. Emma, the _Savior_ , an unstoppable force born to defeat evil and bring back all happy endings, and Regina, the unmovable object that had been molded perfectly to stand in the way of said happiness for all of them, including herself.

They weren’t supposed to, but they had. They did.

And in the rare occasion she will allow herself to linger in that place, the one where she keeps her feelings neatly packed and tucked away, she will usually land on two conclusions—

One,

that falling for Emma was inevitable, really, and that even though she’s had her share of fate dictated decisions, there’s a cosmic quality to it that feels oddly soothing, courses like balsam through her veins.

Provides her with a sense of rightfulness amidst it all.

That it happened slowly, seeped through easier smiles and weaved into _You may not be strong enough, but maybe we are_ , and _So we do this together? Damn right_. That awareness didn’t hit her shaped like a lightning strike, but rather as scattered moments of gradual realization.

Bloomed within her through cautious, fleeting touches. Through ragged confessions of gifts, of truth.

Of happy endings.

Crept up her spine and settled there, somewhere between her lungs, never to be eradicated.

That it was, in the end, the sums of the parts of the whole. She’d stepped into it, made it part of herself. Wore it like she wears her love for Henry. Pulled it over like a second skin.

Two,

that once awareness was part of the equation, she did absolutely nothing to extract herself from it. And it _could_ be self-sabotage, Regina has pondered—the tendency to self-destruct so deeply rooted within her that this could be _it_ , the thing that ultimately renders her deprived of a substantial happy ending—but caring for Emma has evoked such lightness in her otherwise ponderous heart, the practice of it simultaneously so profuse and effortless that she wouldn’t have it any other way, no matter which reality or alternative universe they suddenly found themselves in.

(Which, due to portals and curses and, well— _magic_ , hasn’t and isn’t and wouldn’t be a total improbability.)

She gathers that whether or not she had a lot of saying in falling for Emma could indeed be argued back and forth, but regardless of that, there’s one thing that she knows for sure: loving Emma is one of the few things that Regina has chosen for herself.

Like pouring cream in her coffee, or fighting the rumbles of evil that are still contained in her darkened heart—

she chooses it, willingly steps into it, every day.

It could swallow her whole, consume her to the ground leaving but ruins of her former self, and she wouldn’t mind.

 

 

 

 

Brave, forgiving Emma with a penchant for running and her reckless, open heart.

Emma, who tilts her head to the side in confusion and stops dead in her tracks on the sidewalk with the sole purpose to scratch Pongo behind the ears. Emma, whose legs dangle from the kitchen island while her mother cooks and who sits crossed-legged on their carpet when playing video games with Henry (and, more often than not, losing in an explosion of outraged gasps).

Emma, who pauses, sets down her glass, says, ”I want to help,” says, ”I want to fight,” says, ”I want to _win_ ,” and impossibly bright, green eyes light up with something that hasn’t been there in such a long time, a good share of defiance and newfound resolve to beat fate once and for all dancing in them.

She smiles, and something swells within Regina’s chest to the point where she can almost feel bones sliding into skin.

 

 

 

 

 

And Emma does win (or so it appears); stands victorious with a hand that white-knuckles the hilt of a sword that once belonged to her father; exhales in sharp, short breaths and doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, doesn’t—

There’s a stillness to the night that no longer can be blamed on the dark, bounding magic that until mere moments ago kept them all but the Savior frozen in place; there’s a borrowed moment—a split second—in which Emma’s gaze locks with and holds onto Regina’s, and then there’s something else: a flicker of fear flashing in green iris, gone before Regina can be granted enough time to recognize it for what it is.

The sword hits the ground with a clatter, consequently causing commotion to erupt all around them, and Emma averts her eyes, lets herself get pulled into a hug by her parents. Allows David’s steady hand to cradle the back of her head. Even from a distance, it’s easy to discern the words of reassurance being murmured into golden, long hair. Eyes drifting shut, she sinks into an embrace that once felt awfully overwhelming and unfamiliar, but doesn’t quite as much anymore.

Over by the opposite side of the street, Henry steps forward, fingers untangling from Regina’s as he launches towards his other mother in sheer, exuberant happiness. And Regina almost does, too. Almost follows her son, almost joins the rest of her family.

She almost does, but there’s a flash of black leather sweeping into view—a timely reminder that washes over her, tugs at her mid-section with invisible ropes that hold her in place albeit reluctantly.

(She could so easily will her feet to morph into stone. Chant some halfheartedly spell that would anchor her to the ground.

Be gone in a cloud of smoke.)

Instead, she pours all focus into tending to the slow thawing of her blood; listens closely to it coursing through her veins anew—towards her throbbing heart, ringing ears. Fidgety, wringing hands.

Across from her, Emma is swept into a sea of cheering people, the stream steering her off the main street and towards the diner for further celebrations. Lost to the crowd, Regina lingers behind, eyes trained on the alleged remains of the Black Fairy, on the ashy dust taking off the ground in whirlpools in the evening breeze. Henry, ever her perceptive little boy, looks her way as they’re all leaving, brow furrowed in fleeting puzzlement before she plasters on a smile (for his sake), encourages him with a subtle nod to follow the rest of the party (for her own sake).

But the air gets heavier on her shoulders, pricking at her cheeks while she watches the remaining dust be swept away with greater force.

In the end, she doesn’t linger on the main street for long, but she doesn’t join the rest of her family either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still, when she walks home from the vault that night she’s met by an unanticipatedly occupied porch. Green eyes dart up the moment Regina crosses the threshold of the fence and zero on the minor slip in Regina’s otherwise collected expression. Emma, bathed in weak moonlight and perched on the sole step with her forearms resting on her knees, waits for the click of Regina’s heels to pause somewhere within near proximity before straightening up her spine.

”You kinda disappeared on us,” she says. Not exactly an accusation, but it’s not entirely deprived of reproach either. Then, like she needs to justify her being there, gaze dropping to her hands: ”Henry needed someone to walk him home.”

Regina nods. ”I assumed he would want to remain by your side.” She sneaks a quick glance at Henry’s dark bedroom through the second story window. He’s safe. They’re all safe. ”Considering everything.”

She chuckles, looks up again. ”Didn’t you?” Emma wants to know, followed almost immediately by, ”Want to join in on the celebrations, I mean?”

It’s almost laughable, the word of choice. As if wanting was the issue—the _matter_ , at all. She wanted to carve out her own heart, that’s what she wanted. Break through barriers of magic and bounding spells, _save her_ , save Emma from a fate so intertwined with her own that it aches, constantly. Ceaselessly. 

But Emma has won (or so it appears), and, ”It’s been a long night,” Regina says instead, to which Emma simply nods before pushing off the porch and onto her feet.

Hands in pockets, she saunters down the brick path until she’s all Regina can see in front of her, and for the first time since coming home to an unanticipatedly occupied porch, Regina grants herself permission to survey Emma properly; to take in dark circles, pronounced lines branching out from the corner of each eye.

Pale, swollen lips.

As though they’ve been bitten on too hard. Too long.

(Regina wonders how long Emma has been waiting there, all alone and away from the grand celebrations being held in her honor.

In her name, in her title.)

”Emma,” she breathes. She wants to reach out but doesn’t. ”Emma, you’re shaking.”

”No, I’m—it’s okay,” Emma shrugs it all off: the cold, the statement. Regina’s concern. Or she tries to, at least. 

”Come inside,” Regina says, breezing past Emma on her way to the front door. ”I think there’s still leftovers from last night. Provided that Henry hasn’t gotten to them, that is.”

Against all odds, Emma doesn’t follow. ”No, you’re right.” She shifts in order to face Regina once more, their previous positions now switched. Shuffling closer to the fence, she echoes, ”It’s been a long night. I should go,” without putting any real effort to do so except for a flimsy look over her shoulder.

(Regina would consider the possibility of Emma’s feet having been morphed into stone if it weren’t for the subtle shifting of weight between each foot.)

Emma neither leaves or moves. She doesn’t even flinch when flames begin to creak between them as fire materializes on the palm of Regina’s now outstretched hand.

”Since you won’t come inside,” Regina explains with fond exasperation.

Although it’s weak, Emma’s lips curl into a small smile, complying palms being brought up to absorb the heat radiating from each flame. There are orange sparks dancing in her pupils. Regina does her best not to think about it, or about the way light is being cast on the side of Emma’s face, how it leaves flushed cheeks to be exposed.

For a long moment, there’s nothing but the crunchy, scintillating of the fire.

On her end, Emma seems enthralled by it, brow creasing in deeper thought, until—

”I really thought that was it,” Emma says, voice having dropped to an unfamiliar spectrum. ”For a second there, I really thought…” She chuckles, eyes trained still on the fire before her. ”You know.”

(And it’s seared onto the back of Regina’s eyelids, the image of Emma laying on her back with a sword at her throat and sinister fingers plunging through skin and bones in pursuit of a beating heart. She remembers—how could she not when it was _just now_ —particulates of magic pulsating along every fiber of her petrified body—

buzzing, demanding, aching to be freed.

To be used, to be released.

To salvage Emma.

But then there had been a blast of light and the blade was not longer at Emma’s throat but being rammed through the Black Fairy’s chest. The bounding spell was shattered, the whole town jolted back to life, and Emma stood victorious with a hand that white-knuckled the hilt of a sword that once belonged to her father.

She does. God, she does know.)

Regina swallows. ”But you didn’t. You won, you’re… you’re here.”

”Yeah... yeah, you’re right.” She drops her hands, and, ”Thanks,” Emma says, gaze traveling from the flames to Regina’s searching eyes.

Slowly, Regina lowers her hand as well. The fire dies in her fist at once, but its heat lingers for a little while.

This time, Emma offers, ”Good night, Regina,” before staggering back and turning towards the street. She stops, however, a few steps down the brick path, and, glancing over her shoulder, finally admits, ”I looked back and you weren’t there. Before, _after_ … and I thought—I know she’s gone, but I was so scared that she somehow had…”

And it’s not a reproach this time, not in the least, but it hits the center of Regina’s chest like marble nonetheless, forces a sharp intake of cold air all the way to the pit of her lungs. 

”I’m glad you’re here,” Emma says quietly. ”I’m glad you’re home.”

Regina nods slowly, wills her voice to disentangle within the next couple of hurried heartbeats.

”I’m glad you’re here, too.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emma, stubborn enough to give up some of the purest parts of her magic to ultimately save and bring home Belle, mere days after she herself stood on the brink of death.

( _But didn't die_ , Regina reminds herself.)

”She’s one of us,” Emma says, chest rising with determination. And a moment later, in the form of a whisper meant solely for Regina’s ears, ”Besides, I think your sister might care for Belle more than she knows, which is, y’know… incredibly scary, but also kinda cool.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iv.

Naturally, and because god forbid a truce prevails between the two of them, Regina gets into a fight with Zelena the afternoon following Belle’s return—fires words such as _pathetic_ , _coward_ and _weak_ at her sister with a venom so much like her past self’s that it terrifies her, leaves her shuddering in the middle of the woods after Zelena sneers down at her, suggests, ”You take a look at yourself when preaching of truth,” before being gone in a cloud of angry, green smoke.

And she does, in a way, examine herself on her way to the Rabbit Hole as per requested by Emma earlier—

_breathing_ , foolish Emma, with another hard-won battle to shoulder, another chance at life that had consequently knocked back the air into Regina’s lungs, that had found her mourning the almost loss in her vault this time around; palms shaky against wooden surfaces as she breathed in and out, in and out, in and out. Reminded herself that Emma was doing the same back at the celebrations in the diner, that Emma had won at last and was _alive_ and well.

She examines the paths they’ve chosen; thinks of warm meals and clearer skies, of Henry’s smiles and an easiness laced into their dynamics that they all have fought so hard to preserve.

Fought with sharpened, sinking teeth. With wrath and darkness puncturing their lungs.

Spilled blood trailing down bare arms.

She thinks of the future, too, and her stomach pushes and stomps and rebels against gravity when her train of thoughts inevitably crash onto the glint of silver in Emma’s hand and everything it encapsulates—

everything it signifies and will signify.

Her stomach drops further as she ponders on her own crude advice, on the words she had spat at Zelena earlier in regards of her sister’s doings (or lack thereof) in a situation that parallels her own.

On the way Zelena’s eyes had blazed with rightful outrage before she conjured herself out of Regina’s sight.

Not for the first time, she draws invisible lines, feels the push and pull of strings, and remembers, as Emma materializes around the corner sporting her signature red leather jacket over a black blouse and black jeans, that things are _good_ as they are, that Emma is alive and smiling—alive and happy and _there,_ which is more than could have been hoped for in a world where Emma has been lost to them one way or another since the moment their story began.

Lost to curses and different realms, to several lifetimes and other people.

”What’s the matter?”

Regina blinks as Emma comes into focus before her, and Emma throws a quick look over her own shoulder as if she’ll find the very reason of Regina’s absent mindedness staring back from the shadows.

Brow creasing, Emma pushes, ”You have that look. What happened?”

She wants to say, ”Nothing,” wants to say, ”It doesn’t matter,” wants to say, ”There’s no look, I don’t have a look,” and wave an impatient hand that brings the short exchange to an end. She wants to, but instead the words brim over without consent and Regina hears herself say, ”Let’s talk inside,” without necessarily having reached a fruitful conclusion this time around.

”Uh-oh. What did I do?”

”Emma.”

And the name is not a warning like it was once upon a time—warnings aren’t folded and wrapped with such care, nor are they delivered in two-syllable parcels made of silk. 

Lips curving up as though that fact isn’t lost to her, Emma muses, ”Well, whatever it was, I probably didn’t mean it,” and follows Regina into an establishment that is far too crowded for a Tuesday night, roaring with music and booming conversations.

Still, they manage to find a dimly-lit corner that is oddly spared of it all. Their waiter leads them to the most secluded table, trying and failing catastrophically at keeping his eyes to himself, glancing at Regina as though he can’t believe she has actually agreed to set foot there, let alone sit down to have a drink.

Acutely acquainted with such glances, Regina gives him an one over after he gestures towards their table, and he clears his throat, smoothens down what sounds an awful lot like a stutter when he offers to take their orders.

” _Ooh_ , let me,” Emma cuts in with a smile as they both take a seat across each other. ”Vodka martini. Straight up, very dry.” Then, grinning obnoxiously, ”Two olives.”

That earns her a glare from Regina, whose attention shifts back to and stays on Emma. 

”That’s not a good look on you,” she drawls.

”What isn’t?”

”Smugness.”

”Let’s see what you’ve got, then.”

Regina scoffs at the challenge, and without even sparing the waiter a glance, orders, ”She’ll have a Señor Brown. Light on the ice, coat with a dash of cinnamon.”

Emma’s grin grows wider.

The waiter hums to himself like he’s gained some sort of larger understanding and leaves with a chuckle. Regina shoots daggers at the back of his head until he disappears into the bar, then turns back with a huff.

Across from her and buzzing in anticipation, Emma ventures, ”I have something I wanna discuss with you,” the moment she retrieves Regina’s attention.

”Yes, you mentioned that in your phone call.”

There are dresses and seating arrangements and flowers and, well, a _wedding_ latent in the back of her mind. Emma’s call has been a source of escalating apprehension since the moment they had hung up that morning, and probably something that had factored into her disastrous encounter with Zelena in the woods, heels digging into the mud and short nails sharp against the palms of her hands.

Only a few things beat the scenario of having to watch Emma get married, and one of them is having to help and be involved in the planning of said wedding.

”So,” Emma goes on, ”I’m thinking of a trip.”

”Oh.” She echoes, ”A trip?”

”Yes, the, uh—the three of us?”

”I see.”

Not exactly the request Regina had been dreading, but one that turns into sand in her mouth, makes it hard for her to swallow. A trip to cement the new family constellation that Henry and Emma are about to take part of, and all Regina can think of is how to excuse herself from this get-together before their drinks arrive.

”I talked to Henry—just as an idea, don’t worry—and he’s pretty excited.”

”He is?”

Of course Henry would be. Their son, their _little boy_ whom she once assured he one day would have more family than we would know what to do with. How could she deprive him of it now? 

”Yeah, so… what do you think?”

Emma shifts on her seat, lower lip idly caught between her teeth.

On her end, Regina averts her eyes, renounces, ”If that’s what you both want.”

”It is. If you… if you feel ready?” At this, Regina drags her gaze back up, brow furrowing. She watches Emma lean forward with her forearms propped on the table: eyes shimmering under weak, orange-tinted light bulbs. Features determined, _earnest_. ”Look, I know… I know merging back with The Queen was complicated and _draining_ and–and challenging in ways we’ll never understand. I know it can't have been easy by any means, so if you’re still feeling—if you need more time, then we’ll wait. We’ll do something else, something less… just something else.”

”It was. Easy, I mean. Easier than I thought it would be.”

Emma beams at her—

beams through eyelashes, through lips.

Through pronounced lines that branch out from the corner of each eye.

”I’m glad.”

(Of course, Regina knows this to be true.

Her entire being had been gravitating towards a decision that she could feel pulsating in her bones since the moment she had split herself in two, and Emma—

oh, _Emma_ —

”I’ve been thinking, and I can’t–I can’t imagine,” she had spoken into Regina’s voicemail at twenty past five, at the very crack of dawn on the day Regina would end up accepting every part of herself at last. ”But I’ve done my share of running, and sometimes it’s better to just… not run anymore. We’re with you no matter what you decide, okay? We’re with you until the end.”

Emma and Henry had been a bay amidst violent waters, a lighthouse guiding her to shore when the waves had been crashing at their worst.

Slowly— _meticulously—_ Regina had strung herself back together after finally coming up for fresh air.)

Spine steeling in rehearsed, regal demeanor, Regina concludes, ”You’re free to make the arrangements needed,” in tandem with Emma asking, ”What about New York?” and they both blink at each other before Emma clarifies, ”Henry and I, we want to show it to you. For real this time.”

Blinking again, Regina rasps out, ”What?”

”Okay, so maybe not New York. Somewhere else, then?”

”You spoke to Henry about us—” She stops, clears her throat. Rephrases. ”About the three of _us_ going away?”

”Um, yeah?”

Upon closer inspection, Emma now appears to be as struck as Regina has been feeling for the entire duration of their exchange, so Regina forces herself to finally inquire—

”What about your wedding?”

Emma lifts an eyebrow, retorts, ”What about it?” like the question could be rendered obsolete with the flick of a wrist.

Like it belongs neither here nor there.

For a while, there’s nothing but roaring music and booming conversations—background noise, far away, but still there and filling in the gaps between quiet exhales.

”This is—” Emma pauses thoughtfully, as though the matter at hand is too vast, too volatile for her to take a wrong turn. ”This is important, too. Everything that happened, everything we’ve been through, and now it’s… it’s over.” There’s a wistfulness to her tone that bleeds onto her words, but she pushes through, ”We made it, didn’t we? We got here.”

Regina nods in silence. Then, prompted by the freshly acquired relief coursing through her, ”Okay. Let’s… let’s go away.”

Something is brewing within her, rising up at the back of her throat. Scratching at her tongue.

She wishes swallowing the words was enough for it all to be obliterated.

Because Emma speaks of trips, speaks of family, speaks of the fact that they—somehow and against all odds—got _there_ , and Regina’s heart thumps against her ribcage with newfound ferocity if only to make up for the fact that it’s rapidly shrinking inside it.

She can feel her already feeble resolve dissipating like sand corns filtering through desperate fingers, so when the waiter arrives with their drinks, she more than welcomes the unwelcome intrusion.

By the looks of Emma—eyes hiding behind drooping lashes—she does as well, until they’re left alone once more, and she perks up, remembering, ”Oh, right. What was your thing?”

Regina pauses. She may not be able to swallow her feelings nor the occasional urge to come clean about them, but she will bite her tongue bloody and raw if necessary.

”Dinner this Sunday,” she says. ”After you drop off Henry. If you’re free, that is.”

”Of course,” Emma replies. Her smile is warm and genuine and it lights up her end of the table in ways that Regina has come to find extremely distracting. ”Can’t wait.”

Warm meals and clearer skies.

It’s good.

It has to be.

Except Emma’s attention is slipping all of a sudden, darting up and latching onto something else, something _beyond_ ; a flicker of combined recognition and perplexity flashing in her eyes.

Afterwards, Regina will wish she had turned around in time.

Emma, however, won’t.

”She loves you,” Zelena says, short of breath after coming to a halt in front of their table. ”That’s why she’s miserable all the time now. And not _platonically_ , Emma,” she grits out, like she knows that’s where Emma’s mind would take her first, like she’s aware of the need for an overtly clarification where the two of them are concerned. ”She’s–she’s _in love_ with you and she’s trying not to tell you, and if she doesn’t, it’ll be the biggest regret of her life, and probably yours.” She bestows Regina with a first and last look. ”How’s that for the bloody truth.”

And Zelena leaves, or so Emma assumes when her voice can no longer be heard within close proximity.

Instinct had kicked in the moment Emma had realized that Zelena spoke not to her sister but _about_ her, and her eyes had zeroed on Regina in a vain attempt at trying to make sense of the situation. Regina, however, isn’t looking at her, isn’t looking at anyone, really, gaze having fallen to her lap and drifted shut. She remains like that even after Zelena is gone—for how long, Emma doesn’t know. Doesn’t dare to guess.

And Emma, eyes stinging and pleading, silently begs Regina to look at her, just look at her for a second at least so they can—

so _she_ can—

Regina drags her gaze up slowly, like she’s trying to borrow time when there’s no time left to be borrowed, let alone be _wasted_ , and as much as Emma’s entire being is pounding with the need to hear what she has to say, when Regina’s lips finally part, Emma can’t help herself and leaps.

”Are you?”

And she _hates_ it, hates how the syllabus are bending and snapping at their own volition, hates how her cheeks are burning now, too, the tears no longer in her eyes but falling down her face, leaving a taste of salt on her lips. But more than anything else, she hates the way Regina, despite having them welling in her eyes as well, somehow seems to school her features back into place. Even manages to put on a smile.

Still, it’s _there—_ palpitating under Emma’s unrelenting gaze and the shadows being cast by weak, orange light bulbs. She can almost discern it between the lines on Regina’s face, can almost see the gears are turning away in her head and rapidly threading together an explanation that will deviate from Zelena’s words.

Her entire body is screaming at her about fabricated lies, and she wonders about her self-proclaimed superpower and tries to pinpoint the exact moment it was rendered entirely defective where Regina was concerned.

”Emma…” Regina starts, the explanation seemingly on the tip of her tongue, and it’s all Emma needs to get up and leave, her voice thick with denial as she moves past Regina and dashes towards the door.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lot of easter eggs from other shows/movies in here. hmu if you found them.
> 
> thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> six months and countless breakdowns later i present you with this second chapter. i gotta be honest and say i wrote myself into an angst hole i wasn't sure i was gonna get out of, so consider this a warning: this is an angsty one.
> 
> kinda beta'd but not entirely.
> 
> thanks to august and ambre, always, and to all of you who read and encouraged me to continue one way or another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She doesn’t go home, the house too big, too foreign of a concept for her to fully grasp it at the moment.

Instead, Emma finds herself trudging up the stairs to a place that she once considered home (or close enough), feet heavy and reluctant as though her entire body is aware of the fact that her heart thumps with inadequacy, that the beats are inconsistent at the very best.

It doesn’t strike as a surprise to see Snow’s face light up at the sight of her daughter standing on the other side of the door, hands tucking into the pockets of her jacket before she mutters a, ”Hi,” and shuffles into the loft, and Emma also gathers it pretty in character for her mother to very adamantly keep her in her line of sight while she surveys the place in silence.

(Because if there’s one thing about Emma that unsettles her mother, it’s just that—silence.)

Unhurriedly, she lets her eyes wander around the loft as if she’s seeing it for the first time. The bed remains unmade and there are dishes piling up in the sink, and the air sinks around them, thick and heavy from the dinner she assumes her parents just shared. It pushes down her throat and shoots towards each lung, forcing Emma to swallow the heat.

”You just missed your father,” Snow explains. The hardwood floor creaks beneath her socked feet when she traces Emma’s footsteps towards the kitchen. ”He left for the night shift a moment ago.”

Somewhere in the bedroom, her baby brother is snoring softly.

For a short moment, Emma wonders if she’s supposed to feel like an intruder in her parent’s home. She tries not to dwell on that thought, quickly chastises herself for even allowing her mind to go there. Her parents are together (once more), curses be damned (once more), and clearly making the most of it.

Making up for lost time—

they were always keen on that. Always good at that.

”Honey?”

In what has become a recurrent theme where Emma is concerned, Snow oozes uncertainty—her approach tentative and gentle, as though Emma would be rendered to shambles given the wrong turn, however small it might be.

As though Emma didn’t go twenty-eight years learning how to build and rebuild herself, morph into steel made of corrosive iron, shatter and shatter and puzzle it all back again.

As though Emma doesn’t wear patches over patches still. Less than before, yes. But _still_.

Already feeling the repercussions that have been creeping up her spine since the moment she walked out of the bar, and blood now suddenly near boiling point, Emma whips around to openly demand, ”I want to know the ending,” and waits.

”Oh.” Snow blinks at her. ”The ending—?”

”What would have happened, what our life would have been like if we’d stayed, if… if Regina had been defeated.” She draws a short breath, chin tilting upwards. ”I want to hear it, and I want to hear it from you.”

Snow echoes, ”Oh.” Then, giving a single nod: ”Okay.”

On second thought, maybe her mother does know. Maybe that’s the underlying reason for her caution.

And although the silence that follows is everything but static—Snow checking on her son, moving back towards the kitchen, placing the old silvery kettle on the stove—to Emma it feels like needles down her nape. It’s endless in ways that leave her short of patience; a silence dense with expectancy up until the kettle is whistling and Snow, wordlessly still, is pouring them both a cup of green tea.

They stand on opposite sides of the kitchen island, steam swirling upwards in between them, and it reminds Emma of a time when they stood like this long ago, during what appeared to be the very beginning of their story but wasn’t.

Back when Emma didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.

But awareness isn’t an issue anymore, and Emma understands her request being met by genuine astonishment due to her rarely asking about their past, about the life they believed Emma would be born into. The one they hoped would shape Emma into the daughter they spent all those months dreaming of, she assumes.

Pensively, Snow leans forward, elbows propped on the surface of the island and hands closing around the mug before her. She clears her throat before speaking. Emma waits.

”As we’ve told you before, you were born the same day the curse was cast,” Snow says at last. ”Mere moments before it hit our castle, actually. I don’t…” She pauses, brow furrowing. ”Of course, we can’t know for sure what it would have been like, but assuming we’d found a way to defeat evil before… before it was too late…”

And without doing so in any particular order, Snow tells Emma about it all—

about royal upbringings and councils, alliances and political games. Balls and responsibilities and an everyday life featuring a wholly sense of serenity that Snow (and David, to an extent) had grown unaccustomed to while at war with Regina.

Still, as her mother speaks, Emma can easily discern the longing note in her voice—longing for all those missed opportunities, perhaps, for the chance they didn’t get to be together from the very start. And whilst Emma has, in the past, carried with her a twinge of phantom nostalgia for a life she was supposed to live but didn’t, she can’t help the animosity surging within her upon hearing Snow’s take on what her alleged happy ending could have looked like.

None of it feels right.

Instead, it feels like shards of glass in her hands, against her throat, beneath her feet—everywhere. Each of Snow’s words daggers through Emma with ruthless precision, quick and clean, painfully swift. Merciless.

But the most ruthless of them all comes when Snow, somehow convinced that Emma is ransacking for similarities instead of anything else, offers with a smile, ”Like you’re doing now, sweetheart.”

Emma swallows, blinks at her mother. ”What?”

”Like you’re doing now,” she repeats, smile almost intact on her lips. ”Getting married to someone that you love, starting a family.”

And Emma’s stomach plummets.

She tries to latch her gaze onto something in the loft but the walls might as well be closing in on them—rapidly shrinking around them, above them, behind Emma’s buckling knees. She feels as though all warmth has been sucked out of the room, the air still thick but now colder and devoid of any real oxygen, smothering down her throat and filling up her lungs until—

”I have a family,” Emma forces out. ”I have Henry, I have—” _Regina_. ”I… I have you.” She doesn’t intend for the last sentence to be posed as an inquiry rather than the unwavering statement it should come out as, but her voice goes up towards the end nonetheless.

(Her fingertips are throbbing against the lukewarm mug, leaving fading stains of magic when she lets go of the porcelain. She hopes her mother doesn’t notice.)

Always quick to dissipate doubts, Snow reaches out to cover Emma’s hand with her own. ” _Of_ _course_ you do. And it’s all so wonderful, honey. I simply meant a family of your own.”

Ever so slowly, Emma withdraws her hand under Snow’s perplexed gaze.

She thinks back to the Wish Realm, to that placid life in which she had Henry and her parents yet still felt a wistful hollowness in her heart; in which Neal was there and then wasn’t; in which she wasn’t herself, not _really_ , and not Regina’s favorite model.

A land in which she had dreams that told a foreign tale of home.

Almost too quietly, Emma says, ”But that wasn’t me,” and steps away from the counter. ”It wasn’t real, it wasn’t me.”

She’s backtracking, staggering blindly towards the front door while a visibly thrown Snow rounds the kitchen island, soothing words tumbling down her lips as she tries in vain to lock eyes with her daughter.

”Emma, what’s wrong?”

Voice a thin thread still, she says, ”The Wish Realm—it wasn’t real.”

”I know—”

”But the premises, the outcome—that could have been real if you had won… if Regina had been defeated.”

”But It wasn’t.”

”It _could_ have been.”

Something resembling vague understanding flashes across Snow’s face, and she dares another step forward.

”Emma. Emma, honey, that life—it doesn’t _matter_. You… sweetheart, you found us, you came _back_ for us, and we have each other, and that’s all that matters. It’s all that will _ever_ matter.”

Gaze trained anywhere but near Snow, Emma nods in silence before dragging up hardened eyes. ”But it would have made things so much easier, wouldn’t it? Princess Emma growing up in the sheltered castle, following in her parent’s footsteps. Doing what was best for her people, like bringing back their happy endings. Starting a family that was formed and built accordingly, like I’m doing now.” Then, barely missing a beat: ”Isn’t that what you wanted?”

”Emma, I didn’t _mean_ —I just thought since you’re—”

Having found her voice at last, she deadpans, ”Well, that isn’t me,” before turning around and walking out the door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She takes the night shift that evening, and then again the next one. And the one after that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

First night is the easiest one.

After enduring questioning glances and vain attempts at finding out why she’s at the station and so relentlessly willing to cover his shift, David relinquishes and agrees to go home for the night.

(Emma pretends to not have seen the flicker of mild understanding on his face after he’d fished out a buzzing cellphone from his pocket, pretends she doesn’t know he’s been granted the promise of an explanation as soon as he makes it back to the loft.)

She gives Hook a call the moment her father, albeit still rather reluctantly, leaves, and tells a tale about paperwork that is way overdue and her wanting to catch up now that things have finally calmed down.

He chuckles softly, says, ”Do what you have to do, love,” and she can hear the distraction in his voice, can hear the roaring noises seeping off the background from what can only be the start of another collective bender at the docks.

They hang up without the need of any further explanation from either side, and she feels a strange nuance of gratefulness flooding through her.

Unsurprisingly, paperwork is done within the hour, and another one goes to rearranging the already perfectly arranged office. It starts out well but even the tiniest decisions are sending cold arrows of apprehension down her spine, and she ends up collapsing on the desk chair with a groan and staring at the considerably less organized chaos surrounding her.

As soon as the town goes silent, she’s hit by a wave of regret over the unscheduled all-nighter she so hastily decided to pull; eyelids dropping as she sporadically feels herself dozing off to the sound of nothing, forcing her mind away from the fact that her phone isn’t ringing.

(That it probably won’t ring.)

And although all through the shift she tries in vain to be rid of the stillness closing in—too loud for her throbbing ears and weary senses—but morning isn’t kinder either, and the sun is overly bright for a winter morning as it seeps through worn blinds. It drills into her eyes despite how many times she blinks it off and her breakfast turns to ashes in her mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mulan dumps her motorcycle helmet on the chair next to her desk and runs a quick hand through dark, disheveled hair. ”I don’t mind the night shift,” she says, as if Emma is asking to take over for reasons other than to be alone for a little while longer. ”I can do it.”

”I know you don’t,” Emma sighs. ”And trust me, I _know_ you can. It’s just—I kinda need this right now. For, uh… administrative purposes.”

Arms folding across her chest, Mulan leans back against the edge of the desk, and Emma, too tired to keep up with pretenses, can’t help but fidget with her watch.

”Administrative purposes,” Mulan echoes. ”Right.” She pauses, as if waiting for Emma to elaborate on something else entirely, but nothing happens. ”Well, you’re the sheriff,” she adds. ”Do what you must.”

”That’s… not really how I want things to work around here, though.”

A heartbeat passes, then: ”Just these two nights?”

”Just the two.”

”Okay,” she says at last, pushing off the desk as her focus shifts to the neatly aligned pile of folders waiting for her.

Emma breathes out, fetches the keychain from her office.

”Thanks. I’ll head home and get some sleep, then.”

Mulan deadpans, ”Yeah, you look like hell,” without tearing her gaze from a report in her hand, but there’s the hint of a smile on her lips and Emma feels lighter when she walks out of the station a moment later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She drives up to a house that is grim and silent, all curtains drawn, and the cushions of the couch sink underneath her weight when she lies down to rest in the living room, unable—for some reason—to make it up the stairs and into the master bedroom. The clock keeps ticking by and she catches herself counting the smaller shadows haunting the ceiling before shutting her eyes.

It is said that sleep doesn’t come easily when your mind is elsewhere, and Emma gathers hers is very much elsewhere.

It’s somewhere between her 28th birthday and the disrupted, fabricated image of strong arms carrying her to safety in a castle that was falling apart; somewhere between the first time she ran away from a foster home and the last time she allowed herself to get caught before turning her life around.

It’s in the first curse, and the second, and the third.

It’s in the death sentence she barely escaped from, and Henry’s smile, and the questions she never got to ask and the answers she’s afraid to get, and—

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the way _something_ doesn’t quite fit within her, like a tiny piece from her lungs has been misplaced and now she’s left with a bit that is too small to be relocated and a cavity that feels too large to be perpetually ignored.

(She tries, though. She does her best.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second night she doesn’t call.

Explanations aren’t really due, and it pricks at her throat as she heads for the station later that evening, the fact that they might live under the same roof but they have somehow managed to lead quite separate lives.

Before she can do anything to prevent it, the thought has spread through her at an alarming rate, sitting on her chest until long after darkness has cloaked the entire town—this night even more tedious than the previous one—and a knock on the doorway drags her back.

The moment she sees him, she feels the weight of the silver band on her left hand.

He lingers by the door, smile broad when their eyes meet, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, pulls out a lie about having some paperwork left still, about needing to be there to make sure their transition from cursed town to slightly-less-cursed town goes as smoothly as possible.

Hook laughs, jokes, ”Don’t kill yourself over this, Swan. It’s just a job,” and she doesn’t know how to tell him that it’s so much more than just a job, that it’s never been that simple and probably never will.

It takes all her restraint not to duck her head when he kisses her cheek goodbye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She wants to laugh, too—

to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all, later that night when she’s been granted the certainty of solitude, when she knows that no interruptions are likely to come sprinting through the door.

(There’s only the flicker of a shadow by her window. Her gaze lingers, brows knitting together, but it doesn’t come back.)

Her mother’s words are still echoing inside her head, loud and pounding despite Snow’s careful voice, and Emma wants to laugh so desperately because apparently all roads do lead to Rome—or rather, to enchanted forests and cursed towns—but she never expected her whole life would be orchestrated to lead to an ending á la fairytale.

It’s the _ending_ part of it that latches onto her, the conclusiveness of it all when in reality she feels nowhere near done.

There are paths that branched out and intersected when they shouldn’t, an entire lifetime of sporadic interventions that lead to her wishing upon a lone, blue candle seconds before Henry knocked on her door with his mind set on bringing her home.

Clever, beautiful, perceptive Henry; who knows too much and so little, who wants and _wants_ and fights and wishes quietly with his eyes squeezed shut (just like Emma).

Henry, who wears his heart on his sleeve and often forgets the way a look of his can give away the entire range of emotions hidden behind (just like his Mother).

And she resents that amidst the fog, there’s that one voice going on and on in her head; one awfully familiar voice that keeps reminding her _You think it was a coincidence that I just so happened to adopt the Savior's son?_

She wants to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all, wants to laugh at the fact that the constellation of people she keeps coming back to is the one that was never in the cards for her.

She wants to, but she doesn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Third night arrives in an instant, sleep-deprivation tugging at her muscles despite the few hours she managed on the station’s newly acquired (but rather old and wooly) couch.

David turned up to relieve her from her second night shift soon after the sun had gone up, eyes searching and kind, but he knows better than to push Emma at this point so he simply didn’t.

(It took her a moment to sort out her take on the matter, and then it hit her after they crossed paths on her way to the common room—she’s both thankful and resentful of his caution, and wonders, not for the first time, if his approach would be the same had their story played out differently.

Had she been different.)

Nevertheless, some sort of childish reassurance can be found in knowing he’s been somewhere in the vicinity and she catches herself searching, too, once she’s back in her office and settling into her third night shift. Both David and Mulan make a move to leave and Emma pays concealed but unwavering attention to her father, even though she pretends not to notice when he spins on his feet and enters the office holding a Tupperware.

He places it on the tiny corner of her desk that isn’t plastered with folders and his voice is kind as well, but also quite firm when he says, ”Eat, Emma,” before dragging himself out of there.

And she’s left alone in a dim-lit office, alone with a pile of finished paperwork and the fight-or-flight instincts rearing up in her against her will, against her knowing better.

She made a point to keep herself busy during the day if only to justify for the fact that she didn’t bother to go home at all this time but now she feels as though the consequences are catching up to her in the worst possible way.

Because no one is questioning her actions or the way she has slipped out of everyone’s reach except for Henry’s. No one is asking any questions nor expecting any answers, and she tries in vain to bury the part of her that wishes someone, _anyone_ , actually did.

She can’t flee—she _won’t_ flee—and even if she could fight, she wouldn’t know where to begin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At 20:34 it dawns on her how easy it would be to fall back into old habits of chosen isolation.

She tries to chase away that thought.

20:59. It’s been almost three days and Regina hasn’t called. Emma definitely doesn’t dwell on that, either.

21:14. Feet propped up on the desk, she types out a reply to an unusually talkative Henry confirming their plans for Sunday, then another one reminding him to go to bed, and bursts into quiet laughter at his snarky response.

23:06. She loses track of time going through and archiving old case files, explicitly avoids the ones from when she was still a deputy. Those still ooze a dangerous mix of oblivious bliss and rocketing voltage. She should know better than to miss being blind to their truth, and yet sometimes she does.

The food is cold when she finally gets to it, but she eats it anyway.

23:23. It’s almost too late when she reminds herself to pick up the phone.

For Hook’s sake, she tells herself. So he doesn’t wait up.

Up until this moment, she hasn’t let herself linger on the thoughts at the back of her mind, the ones that don’t agree on much but do agree on one thing: that she isn’t ready to go back, that the house feels like a cage of rattling bones since—

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since, well—

Tuesday night.

And for the first time _since_ Tuesday night, she allows herself to think about the things she’s been rummaging around but not quite dared to grab onto for two entire days.

She allows herself to think about Regina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out of all the different ways in which it could have unfolded, she would easily agree to this one being rather jarring:

fingertips leaking small drops of fading magic into the sink;

gaze averting from the reflection in the bathroom mirror;

mind _dashing_ from the ticking realization that she probably doesn’t look like herself.

(That she hasn’t really felt like herself in a while.)

And the floor might be hard and steady when she drags herself out of there a moment later, but the fissures are mapped out right there before her. It’s all cracked open, laying ahead and staring back with unyielding intent—

everything she had not dared to hope for, and more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She remembers coming back from New York, remembers how oblivion had been cruel in its infinite kindness; remembers how once her memories had kicked back in she had been forced to face a year worth of seemingly steady realities that actually hung by a thin, red thread.

And she can still feel the sharp aftertaste of one particular set of memories; can still see herself standing by the town line with her heart in her throat, being granted the gift of family, of love, of a past that wasn’t real but a future that could be, and she had _wondered_ —

she had wondered.

She had wanted more, something, anything.

Everything.

But coming back from that year had meant having to stand in the middle of a sweeping tornado, missing entire pieces of the puzzle while still attempting to do the right thing.

She can’t quite pinpoint the exact moment she became aware of the undercurrent rivers flooding between them, although she is certain of one thing: being back meant building the tallest dam in order to contain it all because no matter what Emma felt upon awakening, there were new dangers, new children, new soulmates to take into consideration.

And there was just _so much_ Emma had missed but had to learn about that in the end it became easier to slip into whatever it was that was expected of her at the moment.

The prodigal daughter, the consenting girlfriend. The right kind of Savior.

A co-parent, a friend. An accomplice to secret operations.

It was enough. It had to be.

Inevitably, she became adept at keeping it all to herself—

the overflowing hope that had surged within by the town line, the crippling fear in her heaving chest as she and Henry drove away from their family and friends, and (this one she buried as deep as possible) the way she had been able to trace Regina through the entirety of that year away as soon as she got her memories back.

Oblivion had been cruel in its kindness indeed, providing Emma with glimpses into their cursed lives that made it so abundantly clear that Regina had been _everywhere_ and weaved into their past, present and future, even if it meant going against every law of magic and nature.

(Albeit unknowingly, Regina never fails to find a way.

The thought alone steadies Emma, like burying her feet in the sand right before a wave crashes against her legs.)

In retrospect, the entire year had been like drawing shallow breaths when you’re short of air. Never good enough, constantly grasping at straws.

And Regina was there, undercurrent, even when she wasn’t supposed to be.

Regina was—

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regina _is_ bloodlust.

Sometimes buried deep down, dormant; sometimes brewing right under the surface. Sometimes blasting and unapologetically demanding, _thirsty_.

But Regina is satin, too.

Slithery, soft to the touch.

Sublime.

She’s thunderstorms and gasoline and a sense of belonging that goes beyond predestined encounters; runs deeper than all prophecies and curses, together and apart, in each timeline and every _goddamn_ universe—

because it wasn’t supposed to unfold like this.

It was supposed to end in bodies crumbling to the ground, taunting shadows—destruction all around.

Bloodshed.

The stuff of fairytales, she supposes; _real_ , fleshed out fairytales, paradoxical as it is, and not the ones she’s still learning to unlearn.

Prophecies had provided her parents with the certainty that Emma would return to them, that she would _find_ them and bring back all happy endings. It was so stubbornly ingrained in their beliefs that the Savior would defeat Evil, that Good would prevail above it all.

And perhaps it would have been that simple had Evil been as one-dimensional as they painted it, had it been born and not made, had Emma not gotten lost in a labyrinth of gray areas and done unspeakable things in the name of Good.

Had she not learned to understand the sins committed by the people that she—

that she grew to love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It happened more or less like this:

she knew first about the pull between them and a bit later about its meaning.

Like magic— _their_ magic—it flows through her, warm and rapturous and threatening to brim over on the not so rare occasion she forgets to reel it in.

(A hovering hand shooting out to shield and glances that question and wait for approval; eyes that see too much into matters that shouldn't bother her but that burn, burn, _burn_ in the pit of her stomach nonetheless.

Trying to calculate the space and every touch between them, leaning into someone else instead.

Every so often by charging head-first into the unknown, by ensuring Regina’s wellbeing even if it means destroying herself, metaphorically. Physically.

Always, always wishing for something else.

Eyes squeezed shut just like the night she turned twenty-eight.

Just like Henry.)

It has soldiered through looming rancors and imminent fallouts, and Emma has cared through hatred and loss and wars so ancient and rusted it has become clear they never really belonged to either of them.

She has been sucked into portals and taken upon entire abyss of darkness, has loved Regina so effortlessly and soundlessly she can’t remember a version of herself that didn’t carry those quiet feelings around.

And she didn’t walk into it with the royal poise her origins would have dictated, but rather crashed full force, skinned the palm of her hands in a vain attempt to cushion the landing.

Kind of stumbled into it without meaning to and suddenly— _suddenly—_ it was all she knew.

(Leave it to Regina to make her fall so clumsily and without even the hint of a warning, she muses with a half-hearted groan.)

Over time, she let it be without further questions; didn’t bother to try and justify something that had so easily become part of herself, that rose and withdrew between her ribs like rumbling tides by the moonlit sea.

Something that she later understood she didn’t dare to name out of fear that someday, _somehow_ , it would be carried away by the current, never to be rocked back to her.

Because there have been instances—too many—when she thought that was the case; when they were at opposite sides of fights and closed doors, when there were other arms slung over both their shoulders and Emma settled into heavier embraces and stayed and stayed and didn’t run, didn’t leave.

But it’s hard not to lose north without following the alignment of the stars and it’s _harder_ , even, when Regina sheds a raw magnetism that tugs at Emma’s limbs, that had her cutting down apple trees at first and reaching for Regina further down the road as they were about to leave a realm that could have been but luckily wasn’t.

A magnetism that has rendered Emma’s lie detector useless and makes her self-restraint go up in smokes, that calls for her.

It hit her like a freight train, like a tumbling wave, like a meteorite hitting the ground beneath her, that somewhere after _You’re Henry’s birth mother?_ and before _My gift to you is good memories_ she had started to hope she would always be able to find her way back to them.

To Regina and Henry and that damned white porch.

Because in a turn of events where she and Regina were supposed to be each other’s ultimate downfall, where Emma thought herself to be too bruised and battered for happy endings, there’s the palpable certainty that although she might indeed have been set up for that first encounter all along, everything that happened after was a choice of theirs alone.

There is Regina being one of the few things that have always felt right—in Emma’s bones, on the tip of her magic-bleeding fingers.

Feels a whole lot like home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end, she forces herself to call, leaves a voicemail into an unanswered phone that says too much about nothing and too little about everything.

And the station is a different brand of quiet, a soothing kind of quiet when Emma finally allows herself to be anchored by the thought that keeps buzzing and jolting between her lungs—

Lay waste to it all, fairytales be damned.  
****

Nothing else matters but them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For three days, there’s been radio silence.

And although it’s been her choice to begin with, it still unsettles Emma, realizing how easy it would be to slip away from each other’s orbit; how the silence between them is louder than it has ever been.

How it echoes.

Because there has been quiet before, yes—

 _simmering_ quiet; sometimes mournful and rippled, sometimes thick and menacing and infuriating in ways Emma never knew before meeting Regina, but not like this. Never like this.

Each day since that night has carved out something from in between her ribs, each time she has woken up it has been feeling as thought her heart has been lodged in her throat since the moment she walked out of that bar.

Like a ship caught in a storm in the middle of the ocean, she feels adrift somehow—helplessly waiting for either destruction or salvation, and she’s not sure about the meaning each potential outcome holds anymore.

She’s not sure she wants the outcome to unravel on its own either, so Friday afternoon finds her shifting her weight from one foot to another outside of Regina’s office.

Staying true to the cunning ways that have granted her survival so far, Emma manages to orchestrate her arrival so that Town Hall is empty but for the Mayor’s office, light still on and seeping out and towards Emma’s feet through the closed door.

Emma thinks she knocks (at least, she means to) before turning the knob and pushing the door open, but the startled look on Regina’s face gives her pause for a split second. She lingers by the door, an idly hand placed on the doorknob. Seated behind the desk and schooling her features into something less puzzled, Regina straightens her spine.

She says, ”Emma,” with the hint of a question threaded into her voice.

As though she’s been waiting for this to happen, and now that it has she’s been caught off guard.

Carefully, Emma closes the door behind her then crosses the room, gives a ”Hey” that somehow hovers between them before coming to a halt in front of the desk.

The visit holds a purpose, Emma reminds herself, but she’s too aware of Regina’s eyes on her, too aware of her own wringing hands and pounding ears.

”Is everything alright?” Regina asks, shoulders dropping slightly.

Her posture, however, remains as regal.

Emma nods. ”Yeah, of course.” Her left hand closes harder around the folder she’s holding. She glances quickly around the office, and, ”You okay?” she asks, lips curving into a tentative smile.

A heartbeat passes. ”Yes.” Then, like Regina is trying not to but can’t help herself: ”Are you?”

”Yeah, just tired.” Emma holds up the folder in her hand before placing it on the desk and giving it a small nudge towards the middle of the surface. ”Here’s the paperwork from the Anderson case. I was told you needed it before the end of the week.”

Instinctively, Regina’s gaze darts to the clock on the wall, the one confirming that even if they were going by _Regina’s_ office hours (which both of them know tend to end a tad later on nights like this when Henry is staying over at a friend’s) then Emma still would have made the deadline with less than five minutes to spare.

Following Regina’s line of sight, Emma rubs the back of her neck with one hand, chuckles lightly before turning back. ”I was also told it wasn’t that urgent.”

Regina smiles—not at Emma but to herself, small and genuine and allowing the air between them to discharge. Quietly, Emma relishes in the fact that she made that happen.

”You were told right,” Regina offers, reaching for the folder in question and flipping it open. ”Although there was no need to come all the way here solely for this.”

Emma concurs, ”I know,” and stuffs both hands into the pockets of her red jacket, the same jacket Regina has warned looks far too thin for Storybrooke’s dropping temperatures. ”Just thought it’d be a shame if you were to need it and I wasn’t at the station to provide it.” She rocks on the balls of her feet, eyes on Regina while the latter flips through the folder. ”For the sake of the case, I mean.”

Seemingly eyeing the report in her hand, Regina says, ”Given the shift trades at the station as of late, your absence during day hours does sound like a probability,” before catching herself and freezing momentarily, gaze moving on to the last, _blank_ page of the document.

Something swells inside Emma’s chest, face breaking into a bigger, easier smile. ”You’re keeping tabs on me?”

At last, the folder is folded shut and unceremoniously dropped among the rest of the paperwork. Regina rises from her seat, gaze shifting to Emma as she comes up to her eye level.

”Yes, well,” she starts. ”It’s a small town and I happen to run it.”

Looking fairly unconvinced, Emma bites back the grin that keeps tugging at her lips.

”Uh-huh.”

”And Henry has been… oddly talkative these days,” Regina renounces.

”Right, Henry.”

For a short moment, Emma feels as though she’s become feather-light but then Regina is humming clinically and placing both palms on her end of the desk.

”Well, if that will be all…” she trails off, somehow managing a terminating note to all of it—her sentence, their current exchange. The matter at hand.

This time it’s Emma’s turn to look puzzled, mirroring Regina down to the high end to her voice with a flimsy, ”Oh? Yes, that—uh, that’s all?”

”Because I have quite a bit of workload to sort through.”

Emma blinks, unsure (so unsure nowadays). ”Right. Of course.” Then, with the last three days latent in her mind and still anchored to the spot, she draws a breath and ventures, ”I, uh. I was actually hoping that we could talk? About what happened the other night.”

They stand on each side of the desk, and Emma realizes Regina might indeed have been waiting for this to happen, as she appears to be more prepared than she had thought herself to be up until mere seconds ago.

”Very well. What about it?” Regina asks, oozing the calm approach that Emma somehow managed to lose in the past minute. Before Emma can answer, Regina’s eyes are dropping to the paperwork before her once more, and, ”If this is about Zelena’s allegations, then there’s no need to worry about those,” she says.

Emma doesn’t realize she’d been on her way to step forward until she’s physically recoiling back into place.

Slowly, too carefully, she asks, ”There isn’t?”

”Of course not. They’re clearly untrue.”

There was a list Emma had meant to check off, a throughly assemblage that included ”Here’s the paperwork from the Anderson case,” and ”I know this is all very complicated, but—” and (perhaps the most important of them all) ”What happens now?”

Each item on the list was based on what she knew—what she’d _learned_ —to be true three nights ago but all of that feels out of reach now that she stands there stupefied, now that none of it seems to be accurate.

Now that she somehow seems to have gotten it all so wrong.

Emma echoes, ” _Clearly_ ,” with venom in her voice, all fiery anticipation in the pit of her stomach now running ice cold. In the span of a second, she has flicked from stupefying puzzlement to something way less paralyzing. Way less hopeful. ”My apologies for the disturbance, then, Madam Mayor. Won’t happen again.”

At last, Regina drags her eyes from the surface of the desk, meets Emma’s hardened gaze with the faux serenity of someone who’s gotten used to facing life after being ripped of the things they love the most.

She reminds herself of the fact that it’s been three days—

three _entire_ days since Emma walked out of that bar and Regina walked home to an empty porch.

Three days of silence in which she’s thought their life, their family as they know it to be endangered, jeopardized once again by third parties spilling secrets that were never theirs to spill. She hadn’t known if they would get through this unscathed, hadn’t known how to puzzle back something she wasn’t certain to which extent it had been scattered, not until a moment ago when Emma crossed the doorway with a work excuse under her arm and flashed that grin of hers.

And now Emma stands in the middle of her office, her mere presence a disruption to said excruciating quiet, stands there with questions behind chapped lips and hurt in her voice, and—

”I did think… for a moment, the thought did occur me,” Regina says.

At once, Emma lights up with something positively terrifying dancing in green eyes, something that rears up so naturally inside her despite everything life has thrown her way. Something that Regina has learned to handle with ultimate care, the same way she has learned there are things she can’t be selfish with anymore.

Regina’s heart rate picks up beneath her faltered faux serenity, which inevitably leads her to her remembering its tainted nature and the way darkness is ingrained in it, the way it always will.

She remembers that Emma is _good_ —was devised to remain good, even—and, ”It doesn’t anymore,” Regina adds, because she can’t, she _won’t_ stand in the way of someone else’s happiness.

Not again, not this time.

Not Emma’s.

On her end, Emma lets out a shaky breath. ”But Zelena said—”

”Zelena knows nothing,” Regina counters, and means it.

Her sister doesn’t know of all the different ways in which Regina has tried to do the right thing, doesn’t know about the choices they have been confronted with, about the sacredness of their liaisons.

Zelena doesn’t know about everything that is at stake.

”Oh,” Emma says, head spinning all of a sudden. ”Okay.”

She could leave.

She could put on the smile tailored for occasions like this, the ones that barrel into her chest and leave her ragged and scattered.

The ones that make her lose north, if only momentarily.

She _could_ smile and leave but she’s utterly starved for details, no longer held back by her own pretenses. She wants to—needs to know the circumstances surrounding this thing that was but now isn’t; needs to know the _whats_ and _hows_ but most importantly, the—

”When?”

”When?” Regina echoes. ”When what?”

”When was it that this _thought_ occurred you?” Emma asks, face and voice controlled at last, jaw ticking.

Regina swallows, tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth. ”The timeline holds no relevance.”

”Well, it does to me,” Emma argues, certain that there’s nothing left to lose at this point.

In the middle of a terrifying silence, Regina cuts her eyes to the wall and realization shoots down Emma’s spine, cold and cruel and like a million daggers piercing through.  
****

”You weren’t,” she says slowly. ”You weren’t going to tell me.”

”The line needed to be drawn somewhere.” Regina stands a little taller, chin tilting up. ”You finding out wasn’t exactly part of the plan.”

Emma forces out a dry chuckle. ”Fair enough.” Then, angrier, dryer: ”So what _was_ the plan? Raising Henry together, watching him go off to college—then, what? Sunday family dinners until the end of time? Drinks in your studio? Weekly meetings at the town hall? Then _what_?”

”Then _nothing_ ,” Regina bites. ”You’re _engaged_ , Emma—”

”Shouldn’t I have had a say on the matter? Do I even get a choice?”

”It was a long time ago,” Regina deadpans. ”You’re not entitled to this piece of information solely because it happens to concern you.”

”I would’ve liked to _know_!”

”Why?” Regina fires back, tired (so tired nowadays). ”What difference does it make now, Emma? How does this possibly alter the paths we’ve taken?”

”It–it doesn’t, I just—”

”Then _why_ does it matter?”

”Because!”

”Because _what_? It wouldn’t have changed _anythi_ —”

Emma thunders, ”Well, maybe it would have!” and it’s like the alarm that has been going off in both their heads finally ceases.

They stand across each other in silence, chests heaving with the questions burning hot at the back of their throats, and it isn’t until after a painfully long moment that Regina forces herself to ask:

”What?”

Emma swallows. Nothing left to lose. ”I thought… at the town line, before—”

Before that year of swirled old and new memories.

Before waking up from a hollow dream.

Before coming back and being met by lives that had moved on and newfound soulmates.

”It just… it made sense,” Emma tells her, and Regina has to practically will herself not to buckle over at the choice of words. ”But it doesn’t matter, does it?” She shakes her head, as though trying to shake off the feeling altogether. ”It was a long time ago.”

Slowly, Emma staggers back and towards the door—an attempt to leave, Regina fears, before Emma does, in fact, spin on her feet. Her hand closes around the doorknob, and, ”I didn’t know you wanted…” she trails off, her voice closer to a whisper but loud enough for it to echo in the vast office. ”I didn’t.”

Like it truly would have changed the course of things, her knowing about it, and now she’s apologizing for something that was beyond her control.

Regina’s chest shrivels at the mere thought.

She sucks in a shallow breath, tries to collect her thoughts in what feels like the eye of the hurricane. Over by the door, white knuckling the knob and still with her back to her, Emma stands frozen by unspoken expectation.

”What I want,” Regina starts, grateful that Emma is either too obstinate or too kind not to turn around, ”is for you to be happy. For the rest of your life, I want you to… just be happy. That—” She draws another breath in the hopes it will steady her voice, then: ”That matters to me.”

Hand dropping from the doorknob, Emma turns around, brow creasing in sync with the train of thoughts coming together in her head.

”You turned to darkness after Daniel died,” she says. ”Got swept up in it, consumed by it. Even tried to bring him back. And then, Robin—you tried _so hard_ —”

She pauses and Regina waits, unsure and slightly terrified of the turn the conversation has taken.

”I’ve been trying to understand why, trying to wrap my head around the fact that you didn’t tell me, that you never planned on telling me, apparently.”

It’s threaded silently into her words, the implication—

”You’ve always fought for your happiness with every fiber of your being,” Emma explains at last, and then, before Regina can register what’s happening, ”I guess you finally found something that wasn’t worth fighting for.”

”Emma, that’s not—”

”Must’ve been highly inconvenient.”

She’s out the door in the span of a second, and Regina presses two fingers to the bridge of her nose and blinks back the tears in her eyes before conjuring herself right outside of Town Hall.

Purple smoke is still dissipating around her when Emma jerks open the door of the building. She halts at once, groaning like she both did and didn’t want to be chased.

”That’s not what happened,” Regina says, earnest as ever.

The entire street seems to be empty but for them, the lamp posts along the sidewalk already casting weak beams of light as the sun sets in the horizon.

A shiver cuts through them when the wind picks up.

”Look, it doesn’t—” Emma blows out a breath, hands tucked into her jacket once more. ”I get it. Whatever, it’s fine.”

It’s fine.

It’s good. It has to be.

But Regina feels rudderless all of a sudden, ears whistling as she fights the urge to take it all back, to correct herself and tell Emma about everything once and for all—

tell Emma about how the things she touches tend to wither and fade, about how she wants nothing more than for Emma to beat fate and break free from the things she believes to make sense for her life, even if that means watching her choose someone else.

Even if it causes her to wither away instead.

Across from her, Emma shrugs into the night.

”What happens now?” she asks, and it doesn’t escape her, how her carefully assembled list came full circle in the worst possible way. Regina’s lips part in clear hesitation and Emma, powered by every conclusion she has landed on in the past three days, adds, ”Are we… are we still on for dinner this Sunday?”

”Of course,” Regina breathes, like she’s being held upright by the thinnest of ropes as well. ”If you still wish to.”

Emma gives a vague nod. ”I do.” She casts her gaze sideways, forces out a laugh. ” _God_ , this is so—” Then, more determined as she turns back to face Regina, a steely quality to her voice: ”I’m sorry for… I’m really sorry.”

Quietly, Regina says, ”Me, too.”

”Are we—” Emma pauses, unsure. ”We’re good, right?”

Regina nods, eyes gleaming. ”Always.”

”Alright,” Emma concludes, lips curving into a placating, teary smile. ”I’ll see you Sunday, then.”

She turns around and leaves.

This time, Regina lets her.

”Trust me, Emma,” Regina murmurs somberly. All too knowingly. ”Your happy ending isn’t with the Evil Queen.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The house is empty when she walks inside, a scribbled note about taking the ship out for a few days waiting for her on the counter.

Instant relief floods through her at the prospect of solitude within borrowed time, and despite its clear presence, she refuses to acknowledge the twinge of shame laced within.

She flicks on all the lights in both stories of the house instead, cleans the kitchen spotless after making herself dinner, then places the silver band on the nightstand next to the bed before stripping off her clothes and hitting the shower.

She stands under the scalding stream of water until her skin goes raw, hair flat against her back as she tilts her head up with her eyes squeezed shut. She allows the stream to rinse off everything she has been shouldering for the past few days (or weeks, or months), but despite the fact that she steps out of the bathroom feeling more true to herself than she has in a long time, there’s still one cur that breathes through her collarbones.

Because they’ve spoken of the concept of time in relation to what they’ve felt—

 _feel_ for each other, and yet Emma can’t think of anything as timeless and transcendent as the way her entire body has fluttered every time her thoughts have landed on them.

On Henry and Regina, and everything they’ve managed to build with each other. For each other.

And yet it all feels tainted somehow now, tarnished and bruised, like they have been leading lives that are mere shells of what they could have been.

Like the wings were cut off before they even had the chance to take off the ground, and she isn’t sure which wound has slit open the most—the one that mourns the things she didn’t know she could have had, or the one that mourns the things she now knows she never will.

The silver band stays on the nightstand through the entire night, and when she picks it up the next morning it’s only to move it to the inner pocket of her jacket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> told you it was an angsty one. if you're feeling as drained after reading this as i felt after writing it, i can promise there's light at the end of the tunnel. i planned on making this chapter longer but once i hit the last scene i couldn't wait to post it. next chapters are outlined and will hopefully come together more easily (and be slightly less painful).
> 
> thank you so much for reading!
> 
> hit me up if you wanna yell.


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